A raw, unedited, and uncut look at life on the road.

The End Of A 2 Month Process

We started at 0700 on the dot. Don handed out the tests and I breezed right through mine. He looked at me and told me to go outside and secure the coil.

I actually took my time this time and just did it as I did when i was with my mentor. Once I finished, I went back upstairs to let Don know I was done.

As we walked outside, I asked how I did on the tests. He said dude, you did what you should have done yesterday. You aced them. He went on to say that he was pretty disappointed yesterday, but wasn't going to say anything to me as he could see I was already beating myself up. He said he knew I knew my shit as was trying to figure out why I messed up. When we got to the coil, he said it was picture perfect and than he helped me remove everything.

On the way back to the building he said I was going to have a long boring day as he wanted to cover tarping as a group. That meant I had to wait for everyone else to get done with everything.

At about 1230 he called me and another guy over and asked how we felt about our tarping ability. We both felt comfortable, so he told us to take off.

We went to see Jerrie and she had two trucks waiting for us. An 09 Volvo and 08 Freightliner. Neither one of us are crazy about Freightliners so we flipped for it. He won and picked the Volvo. Than Jerrie gave him the bad news. The truck is in New Boston Michigan so he has to hop on a Greyhound bus at 0600 tomorrow to go get it.

Mine however was outside. I walked downstairs to get the keys and the checklist. When I got to the truck, I was a little disappointed because of how dirty it was. When I got inside it went quickly to being pissed off. The inside had candy all over the floor, and was pretty much a mess. The sleeper was clean though. In fact, the upper buck appears to never been touched. Still has the plastic all pristine on the mattress.

I start my checklist and notice that I have a space for a small fridge that is pre-wired for a 12v connection as well as a TV compartment all pre wired. I have two cabinets with shelves as well as a taller one for hanging clothes. I do like all the storage a Freightliner has inside though. Tons of space above my head as well as above each door. The other cool thing is I have dual stacks that sit in front of the sleeper. Basically and "old style" look. So, once I get the outside to my standards it will be lookin sweet.

I ended up getting frustrated with the cleanliness of the inside and went back into the terminal and asked to talk to Ed. He is the Flatbed Division Manager for the East. I told him what I was unhappy about and he said he didn't have anyone to clean it. I said well, I am not signing for a truck in that condition. He said well how long do you think it will take you to clean it out. I said probably a couple of hours. He looks at me and said well, I guess I'll just have to pay you for bucks to do it. SWEET!!! No problems with that!

Since all the maintenance bays were full I asked if he would just like me to take care of it in the morning since I still had a room for the night. He said that would be awesome if I didn't mind.

So, tomorrow morning I will be there first thing to get in a bay and start MY process.

Once I get it all cleaned out, I have to get all my gear issued which will take most of the day.

I am thinking of making my PTA for my first load Monday morning. I am low on hours and don't want to get a load and not be able to take it due to hours available so I am going to do a 34hr restart to get a fresh 70hrs. That way I will be completely ready to roll and have plenty of hrs available.

The other thing I will need to do is get my truck scaled to know my empty weight, but I won't be able to do that until my restart is over. For some reason this is one of the few terminals that make you be on the drive line when you leave the gate, even if you are just going to eat, go to Kmart, or whatever.

Anywho, I am officially SOLO now!!! I started in Millington, TN on Feb 23rd and ended today. It's a huge relief to finally have my own truck. So if you ever see a Swift Freightliner, truck #303278…. That's me!!! 🙂